#if sade was a boy

[tabellae-rex-in-sui]

I'm new to Sade so sorry if this is a stupid question, but was Sade gay? I'm currently reading Justine and noticed the passionate, semi-romantic descriptions of m/m sex, which contrast with the crude descriptions of f/m sex. I've not read all of Sade's books, but the ones I have read also feature characters who're mostly disinterested in women, who give off self-insert vibes (e.g. Dolmancé). Am I reading too much into it? IDK but I was wondering if you could shed some light.

Happy deathday to Sade!! lol

Really all that can be said with certainty is that he definitely wasn't straight lol. Like anyone who died before modern queer theory, Sade's sexuality can be difficult to label with today's terminology. He was certainly attracted to both men and women, so for simplicity's sake I just say he was bisexual. But really, who knows...

Characters that he uses as self-inserts like Dolmancé in PitB or Bressac in Justine are pretty exclusively attracted to men. Like you said, there's multiple times in his writing where characters will praise m/m sex and show blatant disgust towards sex with women. But if you look at Sade's life, there's only one known* male sex partner and many women. There's also several women Sade was in love with throughout his life, but there exists no letters of him professing love to any man. Could this be because male victims were less likely to go to the police, therefore less known to us? because women were easier to pursue in public? because even he felt the pressure of societal norms? because he kept relations with men better hidden? because any such letters or records were selectively destroyed by a relative? Who knows! It could be some, all, or none of these things. It's really up to the interpretation of the reader. The misogyny, philosophical extremism, and very culturally different ideas about sex add so many different variables to Sade's sexuality.

To add further confusion: gender and sexuality were much more correlated in Sade's writing (and seemingly in the time period in general, I mean look at the bisexual Lord Hervey being referred to as "the third sex"), male characters who get sodimized call it them "becoming women", women who put on strap-ons "become men", even women who get sodimized are masculinized: Saint-Ange says she wants to be a "Ganymede" to Dolmancé. So sodomy seemed inherently gay to Sade, regardless of the sexes involved or what roles they played. Whereas today, that's definitely not the case. Beauvoir follows along with the sexuality-gender correlation and suggests that Sade felt more feminine than masculine and his written contempt for female genitalia was a product of his own gender frustrations. From what I've read, most modern historians tend to avoid labeling Sade with anything other than "sodomite" and "libertine" only using "bisexual" and "homosexual" to label certain actions he performed like "homosexual sex" "bisexual orgy" etc. This is when the word queer is godsent.

Tldr; He's too 18th century libertine for modern labels. Colloquially, I default to calling him bi, but we'll never really know. Maybe he would have preferred gay due to his preferences/philosophies. Who knows. Safest bet is to just call him queer.

*Should go without saying but, there were obviously more. Latour is just the only named one with recorded proof.

[renaoriflamme]

I wanna nibble on his neck sm

Also i have raging headache trying to figure out how senators robe actually works + i forgor his gloves

[callilemon]

✨️Bad influence✨️

(I totally confused Q and G so like... ignore that pls... )

[izartn]

Btw in tCSoV the way Louis explained things to Noé and how Vanitas does now is such an interesting contrast?

It's both of them looking at Noé naivety and good will with endearment,

but Vanitas recognizing Noé needs to know how the world works for him to thrive and not be taken advantage of and explaining to him what is what without sugarcoating but with gentleness (for him that is, but it's striking how soft he comes across for Noé)

and Louis being a young teen in a sheltered lost in the woods castle, who probably doesn't see the point of shattering Noé's illusions when he himself is so unhappy with his knowledge of how the world works and they won't ever be free of Grandfather/Master for Noé to need to know better.

I see what your doing MochiJun.

[refrigerated-wizard]

Just finished cleaning. Eating pasta and listening to Sade now. Life is great

[bookdragonquotes]

[deadgirlwalked]

Just started watching s4 ep6 of The Boy's and of course the code to Tek Knight's weird sex dungeon would be "120 days of Sodom" by Marquis De Sade

[victoriafebruary7]

my music taste in color

[redwwwine]

[itsallmadonnasfault]

[axthxxny]

Sade in the back x

[hotnsexyeri]

weeeeek

[kpop-bbg]

[gergthecat]

:0

[elymansss]

Noé having a shit ton of vampire bites all over himself all the time and everyone around him just thinks that his blood is like valuable cause Archiviste stuff or whatever

Oh how wrong they are. Only Dominique and Jeanne know why he truly has all those wounds and it hurts them more then anything.

Those are wounds he inflicted onto himself. He bites himself every day. Every day without ever forgetting to do so, he bites and bites and bites, to not forget Vanitas. The memories flow from his bloodstream into his brain and for a moment, it's like Vanitas never left. It's like Noé never killed him, never saw him die and never became free.